QNAP TS-451 Bay Trail NAS Performance Review
by Ganesh T S on July 28, 2014 9:00 AM ESTEncryption Support Evaluation
Consumers looking for encryption capabilities can opt to encrypt a iSCSI share with TrueCrypt or some in-built encryption mechanism in the client OS. However, if requirements dictate that the data must be shared across multiple users / computers, relying on encryption in the NAS is the best way to move forward. Most NAS vendors use the industry-standard 256-bit AES encryption algorithm. One approach is to encrypt only a particular shared folder while the other approach is to encrypt the full volume. QNAP supports only volume-level encryption for now in QTS.
On the hardware side, encryption support can be in the form of specialized hardware blocks in the SoC (common in ARM / PowerPC based NAS units). In x86-based systems, accelerated encryption support is dependent on whether the AES-NI instruction is available on the host CPU. The Celeron J1800 doesn't have AES-NI capabilities, but the CPU does have some more grunt compared to the previous generation Atoms. The following graphs show its effectiveness.
The encryption-enabled performance numbers of the TS-451 simply blow it past the other contenders. If the absence of AES-NI can still result in this good a performance with a RAID-5 volume, we are left wondering what QNAP could do with AES-NI acceleration in Avoton / Rangeley.
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DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
@Ganesh This question is asked in some form on almost every NAS review. Would you consider addressing it by adding a build vs buy page to the base review template?ganeshts - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Yes, that is a good idea. Let me add it to the template in the concluding remarks section.DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Thanks. Will it be showing up as an update to this review; or in the next one?ganeshts - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
I think you already have a great set of points above, maybe I will just reserve it for the next article :)DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Those were off the cuff and need some cleanup (if nothing else I switched wording halfway through) and the DIY section probably needs expanded; but feel free to use them as a starting point.zodiacsoulmate - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Ok I donno that cause in previous NAS review I didn't see anyone mentioning that, and this NAS is a little pricier than other ones...BMNify - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
if you are going to do that then you better cover the less linked type of base kitfor instance
http://www.xcase.co.uk/rackmount-server-systems/mi... 4 hot swap custom itx case for £118.80 Incl. VAT
just add a http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.as...
ASUS P9A-I/C2550/SAS/4L Mini ITX Green and Space-Saving Server Board DDR3 1333/1600 ECC/Non-ECC UDIMM 4 x MiniSAS connector(Marvell 88SE9485 x 2)
(up to 16 SAS/SATA 6G HDD connections)
want to go larger then put that in something like the
http://www.xcase.co.uk/rackmount-cases/2u-rackmoun...
X-CASE RM 208 2U WITH 8 HOTSWAP BAYS AND RAILS £107.94 Incl. VAT
http://www.xcase.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache...
if you need more later then go for something like the X-CASE RM 212 PRO, 12 BAY HOTSWAP SERVER CASE £238.80 Incl. VAT
or even the more generic NORCO RPC-4224 4U Rackmount Server Case with 24 Hot-Swappable SATA/SAS Drive Bays £253
see ,it easy to build to a given price if you forget the toy dual core antiquated Marvell ARMADA™ 370 soc and you even get far more for less than this crazy £591.60 for an ugly looking steel box and generic single board computer without any hard drives installed...
BMNify - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
oc thats a mind bending 1004.77 US Dollar at current rateshttp://www.span.com/product/Qnap-Desktop-NAS-TS-45...
Qnap Desktop NAS TS-451 4-Bay, JBOD/RAID 0/1/5/6 , empty case for £591.60
OC you could always go the conservative view and still end up with a better data throughput
usng something like the GA-J1900N-D3V Built-in Intel® Celeron™ J1900 (2.0 GHz) quad-core processor and dual gigabit Ethernet ports and pci slot to ...£61.17
DanNeely - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
Honestly, the hardware you're suggesting looks like DIY enterprise architecture more than a typical DIY NAS build. AT does do an occasional article on big enterprise boxes; but 8+ bay boxes are only a very small portion of the NAS coverage here. If we do get a DIY NAS article I'd expect it to be done with inexpensive hardware and at most a 6 drive configuration in addition to a 4 drive one. The 4 drive config would IMO be mandatory for comparison purposes since most of the existing reviews are for systems with that config.BMNify - Monday, July 28, 2014 - link
if its good enough for www.servethehome.com and http://forums.nas4free.org/http://www.servethehome.com/Server-detail/istarusa...
http://forums.nas4free.org/viewtopic.php?f=60&...
then its more than good enough for .anandtech to cover these options on a regular basis, after all readers want to know and be informed about the current options available to them, the options i mentioned above were based on the fact you can get HOTSWAP able hardware cases for far less then these ripoff consumer empty steel box's and SBC that cast them pennies on mass, and yet if you look you the enc consumer can actually find new and better kit such as the mentioned GA-J1900N-D3V Built-in Intel® Celeron™ J1900 (2.0 GHz) quad-core for far less to build than the lesser dual core Celeron™ J1800 that the qnap-ts451 uses....
if you dont need/want 4-in-1 Trayless Hot-swap Backplane then just use the available generic £25 pc box's etc.... OC the ASUS P9A-I/C2550/SAS/4L Mini ITX gets a special mention as its an all in single board computer you the end consumer can get behind if you feel you will need/want tp add sas to sata cables and drives as you see fit over a longer time frame.....
a one off cost that's more expandable as you add data to your LAN devices etc....